TheDairySite Newsletter - 30 March 2012

Welcome to this week's newsletter

Editorial: Achieving Food Security in the Face of Climate Change

Investment in sustainable agriculture, using science and policy to encourage sustainable intensification and reducing loss and waste in the food system are a number of recommendations made by the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change to tackle food security in the face of climate change.

The problems

Despite more than one billion people in the world being undernourished, one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. Demand for agricultural products and food is growing, pushing up prices.

The threat of climate change looms, with extreme weather becoming more and more the norm. On top of that 12 million hectares of agricultural land are lost each year to land degradation.

Land clearing and inefficient practices make agriculture the largest source of greenhouse gas pollution on the planet, says the report by the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change.

The solutions?

The Commission has outlined seven recommendations, which it hopes will be considered by governments, international institutions, investors, agricultural producers, consumers, food companies and researchers. They call for changes in policy, finance, agriculture, development aid, diet choices and food waste as well as revitalised investment in the knowledge systems to support these changes.

Raising the level of global investment: It is time to realise that farms of every size all over the world are fundamental to human nutrition and economic well-being, but they are also facing critical choices with significant implications for the way we manage the planet for long term sufficiency, said the report.

Mobilise science and policy for sustainable agriculture: Alternative agricultural practices have the potential to deliver benefits for both adaptation and mitigation of climate change.

The Commission’s report cites recent evidence that closing the gap between potential and actual yields for 16 major crops could increase productivity by more than 50 per cent. To produce enough food for the world's rapidly growing population, much greater investment is needed to dramatically increase agricultural yields now and in the long-term.

Subsidies for water irrigation and the large usage of chemical fertilisers are both examples of inefficient practices. Instead policy should support economically and environmentally sound farming practices, that conserve natural resources.

Reshaping food systems: If we do not start to make use of the tools at our disposal to encourage eating choices that are good for people and the planet, we must resign ourselves to a growing diet-related disease burden, the report cautioned.

What next?

The report urges stronger follow-through on the 2009 G8 L’Aquila commitments to provide $20 billion for agricultural development in poor countries, incorporating food security and sustainable agriculture programmes into funding.

To operate within a ‘safe space’ for people and the planet, we need to balance how much food we produce, how much we consume and waste and how much agriculture contributes to further climate change, the report concludes.

At the Rio+20 Earth Summit in June 2012, Commissioners will urge governments to make financial commitments for regionally-based research, implementation, capacity building and monitoring to improve agriculture and food systems.